Category Archives: Blackout Poetry

April 22, 2023

of faith

By Kat Myrman 
of faith

a soul that
is not strong
asks for 
evidence
of faith
showing 
contempt 
for sagacity 
a riddle
it baffles
invisible 
beyond conclusion 

~kat

A reverse Blackout Poem for NaPoWriMo 2023 Challenge Day 22, borrowing words in reverse order from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “This World is not Conclusion”.

This World is not Conclusion

BY EMILY DICKINSON

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosophy — don’t know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown-(ing)
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —

CREDITS

This poem is in the public domain.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in 2023, Blackout Poetry, Challenges and Writing Prompts, napowrimo, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings

April 6, 2023

poison

By Kat Myrman 
poison

perfect, lifeless boys 
in the sunshine 
dead or dying 
in this new battlefield 
in schoolhouses 
here, where guns 
are business, 
this country 
where we dare not want
or mention the poison 
claiming them 
in such great numbers

too long in this season 
is blinding us to what we love
 
~kat
NaPoWriMo2023 Challenge Day 6: off topic today. Just could wrap my brain around the ask. Soooo….It’s been a while since I wrote a blackout poem. I found this stunning poem by Molly McCully Brown. The title grabbed me right away because I live in Virginia. Her words resonated with me and my own experience here. My take after gleaning from her words resulted in another poem right from the current headlines. I wish it wasn’t 😟
Virginia, Autumn
by Molly McCully Brown

October, I’m dragging the dog away from perfect birds 
lifeless on the pavement. By the water, boy in dress blues
with bayonets, the blistered hulls of boxships. Everything 
is sunshine. Everything is dead, or dying, and this isn’t 
a new thought. I grew up here, but farther from the ocean.
Each April, they took us to the battlefield, marched us
in schoolhouse lines up courthouse steps: here 
is where the war ended. Never mind that it was fall 
before the final battleship lowered its flag; never mind 
that we still haven’t fired the last gun. What business 
do I have wanting a baby here: in this body 
where I can’t keep my balance, this country
where we can’t keep anything alive that needs us, 
or dares not to, not even the switchgrass 
pale and starved for groundwater? And still, 
I do want. I search the news for mention of the birds, 
whatever poison or disease I’m sure is claiming them 
in such great numbers: meadowlarks, house wrens, 
chickadees, starlings. Once even a gray gull, pulled 
open at the chest before we found him, hollowed
of his organs. It takes a long time—too long— 
for me to understand the sun in this season 
is blinding, and the birds are flying into windows
all around me, fourteen stories up. Flying into glass
and falling. What we love is rarely blameless.
Is it a failure that I wouldn’t trade this brightness?
I imagine pointing upward for my daughter:
Look, there, how it catches in the changing trees.

Copyright © 2023 by Molly McCully Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 5, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in 2023, Blackout Poetry, Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, napowrimo, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Social Issues

September 21, 2020

learned acquiescence

By Kat Myrman 

learned acquiescence

I am domestic
learned from my mother, 
from her mother,
private, distant,
a shadow
I act the part
as time whistles through
one day I plan to be

~kat
A Blackout Poem inspired by poem by Suzanne Buffam, seen below:

Enough
I am wearingdark glasses insidethe house
To match my dark mood.

I have left all the sugar out of the pie.
My rage is a kind of domestic rage.

I learned it from my mother
Who learned it from her mother before her

And so on.
Surely the Greeks had a word for this.

Now surely the Germans do.
The morewords a person knows

To describe her private sufferings
The more distantly she can perceive them.

I repeat the names of all the cities I’ve known
And watch an ant drag its crooked shadow home.

What does it mean to love the lifewe’ve been given?
To act well the part that’s been cast for us?

Wind. Light. Fire. Time.  
A train whistles through the far hills.

One day I plan to be riding it.

Suzanne Buffam, "Enough" from The Irrationalist. Copyright © 2010 by Suzanne Buffam.  Reprinted by permission of Canarium Books.
Source: The Irrationalist (Canarium Books, 2010)

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Blackout Poetry, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings

August 9, 2020

when

By Kat Myrman

when the sun ceases
when no sound is heard
when the moon and the stars
sigh in melancholy, mournful silence
when, in sleep, earth forgets to bloom
remember to breathe
let not sorrow cloud your happiness

~kat

A blackout poem based on this lovely poem by Anne Plato.

Forget Me Not
Ann Plato

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
                                    Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
 Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
Forget me not.

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion’s shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
That will forget thee not.”

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 2, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.

 

4 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Blackout Poetry, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings

July 22, 2020

healing

By Kat Myrman

healing

healing

i hold my breath
try to forget
my shoulders tense
then I remember
the sweetness
and my breathing
grows soft, healing,
like rain, my breath’s
like a kiss, soft, slow,
persistent

~kat

Today’s Blackout Poem inspired by this magnificent poem by Yesenia Montilla.

a brief meditation on breath

i have diver’s lungs from holding my
breath for so long. i promise you
i am not trying to break a record
sometimes i just forget to
exhale. my shoulders held tightly
near my neck, i am a ball of tense
living, a tumbleweed with steel-toed
boots. i can’t remember the last time
i felt light as dandelion. i can’t remember
the last time i took the sweetness in
& my diaphragm expanded into song.
they tell me breathing is everything,
meaning if i breathe right i can live to be
ancient. i’ll grow a soft furry tail or be
telekinetic something powerful enough
to heal the world. i swear i thought
the last time i’d think of death with breath
was that balmy day in july when the cops
became a raging fire & sucked the breath
out of Garner; but yesterday i walked
38 blocks to my father’s house with a mask
over my nose & mouth, the sweat dripping
off my chin only to get caught in fabric & pool up
like rain. & i inhaled small spurts of me, little
particles of my dna. i took into body my own self
& thought i’d die from so much exposure
to my own bereavement—they’re saying
this virus takes your breath away, not
like a mother’s love or like a good kiss
from your lover’s soft mouth but like the police
it can kill you fast or slow; dealer’s choice.
a pallbearer carrying your body without a casket.
they say it’s so contagious it could be quite
breathtaking. so persistent it might as well
be breathing                        down your neck—

Yesenia Montilla

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Blackout Poetry, Digital Art & Photos, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings